


Just Confess Already

by smoothui



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Fluff, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-27
Updated: 2016-08-27
Packaged: 2018-08-11 08:42:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7884391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smoothui/pseuds/smoothui
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mark has a crush on someone way out of his league and Jaemin gets simple joy out of ruining lives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Confess Already

**Author's Note:**

> idk if anyone actually calls Jaemin "Nana" (except me, i for sure do) but it's cute so i'm using it in here

There were a lot of things that Jaemin and Jeno put up with. Since the beginning of the school year though, the most common was dealing with Mark’s pining over one specific upperclassman.

One of the biggest athletes in their school, Nakamoto Yuta was the captain of their soccer team and the object of Mark Lee’s affection. He was a senior while the three of them were freshmen and Mark had fallen in love the first time he saw him.

It probably had something to do with the fact that they were both technically foreigners in the country, and a lot to do with the fact that he was an amazing soccer player. Also, his smile and his body. Mark thought the sun only shined when Yuta was smiling, and actually found himself needing to fan himself every time he so much as pictured his body.

The best moment of his life had probably been when Yuta removed his shirt halfway through his practice on one of the hottest days of the year. Mark had had to leave early that day.

Mark made it a habit to watch their schools soccer matches and routinely attended the afterschool practices. He would be damned if someone tried to keep him from watching his crush at every chance he got. Some days they’d sit up close to the field to watch, and other days they’d just be situated somewhere nearby.

Jaemin and Jeno both kept him company through the time, regardless of how much they hated it. They all hung out after the practice was over anyways, so they didn’t see a point in meeting up with Mark again later.

They were there so often that they had actually been approached by Yuta about it one day. Mark had sputtered something about an interest in possibly joining the team one day, his face flushed nervously and voice cracking, while both of his friends casually said they were there for support. Yuta seemed thankful for all of their responses of interest.

“Smooth,” Jeno commented as Yuta had jogged back to his stretching teammates.

Jaemin had wrapped an arm around Mark’s neck, smirking at his spaced out look.

“Oh my god,” Mark breathed out. “That just happened. He talked to me.”

“Actually, he talked to _us_.”

“Let him have his moment, Nana.”

 

“Look at him, he’s so cool!” Mark exclaimed, leaning over the table the three of them were sitting at to attempt a better look at the male an entire field away. “He just scored a goal!”

Jaemin and Jeno simultaneously groaned and rolled their eyes, giving each other knowing looks.

“You can’t even see him from here,” Jeno sighed out, taking a sip of his slushie.

“It’s just a practice anyways, not like it actually matters if he got a goal.”

When neither comments received a response, Jaemin squinted his eyes at Mark, scrutinizing the way he was fawning over the soccer player. He wasn’t removing his eyes from the field for even a second, nor did he seem to hear anything either of them was saying. They could probably get up and walk away at that moment and Mark wouldn’t notice until the soccer practice had ended.

Every time that Yuta was within a five-mile radius, Mark’s attention was glued to him. Neither Jaemin nor Jeno understood the obsession. They could respect the guy for his soccer skills, but they just couldn’t see what Mark saw. They thought it would probably be a lot easier to be able to if Mark didn’t constantly gush about him.

Jaemin and Jeno exchanged glances once more before nodding their heads in silent agreement.

“Mark?” Jeno asked, moving his head to try and look at the face of the older boy. Mark didn’t even glance at him, eyes following all the small bodies of people on the soccer field with an intense concentration.

“Mark Lee,” Jaemin started in a raised and stern voice, catching Mark’s attention out of pure surprise at the tone, “sit your butt down. We need to have a talk.”

“Can’t it wait?”

“No,” Jeno answered. “It needs to be right now. We can’t delay it any longer.”

“But practice is ending soon anyways—“

Jaemin forced a smile, getting out of his seat across from Mark to pull him down into his own chair. Mark’s eyes and mouth were wide open in shock as he looked between his friends.

“You have a problem. We need to hold an intervention,” Jaemin informed.

“I-intervention? What’s that?”

It took the two a moment to remember that Mark _was_ in fact a foreigner, and took them another moment to explain the meaning to him.

“That’s ridiculous. I don’t need an intervention,” Mark defended himself, glancing back towards the soccer field to see that the team had begun packing up and leaving the field.

“You’re practically stalking him,” Jeno accused.

Before Mark could object, Jaemin’s mouth was already opening.

“If you _just_ have a crush on him then just tell him already,” he complained, giving his friend a fed-up look.

Mark stared at him like he was insane.

“Is that a joke? I could never even _talk_ to him. He’s so above me.”

“You’ve talked to him before,” Jeno pointed out.

“He talked to me first! And I wasn’t confessing to him!”

Jaemin sighed dramatically and exchanged looks with Jeno again.

“Seriously hyung, just do it. You’ll feel better after,” Mark’s disbelieving look and raised eyebrows made Jaemin smile sweetly. “We will, at least.”

“Nana’s right though, Mark. Just do it. It’s not that hard,” Jeno agreed, pushing for his friend to take a leap out of his comfort zone.

“If you guys don’t shut up,” Mark threatened lightly, covering his ears for show.

“What if we don’t?” Jeno prompted, curious to know what Mark could even attempt to do or say.

“Nothing, because he’s too nice to actually do anything.”

“Seriously, just do it and we’ll stop bothering you.”

“All you need to do is go up to him and say, ‘hey, I’m pretty much in love with you’. Easy, simple, over and done with in like ten seconds.”

“Why don’t _you_ do it then, huh?” Mark asked, irritated by the two not understanding how impossible and insane the idea of him confessing to their upperclassman was. It wasn’t just any senior, it was Nakamoto Yuta for God’s sake. He’d only ever even spoken a few words to the Japanese male anyways, and the chances that he would get rejected were undeniable. He’d only end up embarrassed in the end, and it wasn’t like a rejection would make him stop admiring him. All it would do was confirm the fact that Mark actually had no chance with him.

Jaemin and Jeno paused in their rapid questioning and turned to each other before nodding and looking back to Mark.

Jeno looked a bit unsure about the idea, almost as if he was thinking _what if this isn’t actually a good idea_ , but Jaemin was fully for it. They weren’t confessing for him so he didn’t see any possible consequences or reasons not to. As long as he was in the clear, it was acceptable.

“Okay. We will.”

As if Mark were cursed, at that very moment Yuta came into sight, sweat glistening in the sun from an intense practice. Quickly, before the male could get a chance to walk away, Jaemin and Jeno threw out a few rounds of the classic decision maker: rock paper scissors.

The end result was Jaemin standing up from his seat and speed walking towards the soccer captain’s retreating figure. Mark could only watch in shock, the entire situation escalating too quickly for his poor mind to comprehend.

Mark watched as Jaemin and Yuta both came to a halt, the senior turning with a friendly smile to see what the kid wanted.

“Oh my god, he’s not actually—“

Jaemin turned towards the table they were sitting at, pointing a finger at Mark’s frozen figure. Yuta’s curious eyes followed the direction, landing on Mark.

“Oh my god—he is. What the hell Jaemin!”

Mark jumped up from his seat and made to run away. He needed to get out of there, go somewhere and just hide until he died. He couldn’t take this humiliation! Jeno was fast to grab ahold of his arm and keep him by the table though, not allowing him to run off to die, as much as he desperately wanted to at that moment.

While Mark freaked out, he missed Jaemin and Yuta bowing to each other and parting ways. But then Jaemin was there by his side too, and he realized he could stop struggling because the object of his affections was gone and he no longer needed to hide from him.

Jaemin looked much too satisfied with himself, and Mark could only hope to god that he was only bluffing when he said he’d tell Yuta about his crush on him. There was always the possibility that he had said something completely different.

“Y-you—Did you actually tell him?!” Mark asked seriously, grabbing Jaemin’s shoulders and looking directly into his eyes, shaking him the smallest bit.

“What kind of friend do you think I am?”

Mark let out a heavy sigh, relaxing a little at the question. He should have more trust in his friends, honestly, he didn’t give them enough credit—

“Of course I did.”

Mark’s expression went blank, along with all of his thoughts and feelings. He stared into the distance, void of any emotion or movement for a full minute. Jeno attempted to wave a hand in front of his face to get him to come back to them, and when that didn’t work, tried snapping instead.

The snapping seemed to work. Mark found that Jaemin was standing in front of him with a slightly concerned Jeno by his side, and _the little shit was grinning_. _Jaemin had just single handedly ruined his life and he was proud of himself for it._

Mark’s head automatically found it’s way into his hands.

“Oh no,” he moaned, “no no no. I can’t ever let him see me again.”

“It’s alright,” Jeno tried comforting, bringing a hand up to rub at Mark’s back. “What’d he say, anyways?”

“Oh,” Jaemin gasped as he realized he hadn’t even told them, “that’s for Mark to find out on his own. As much as he appreciated my wonderful presence, Yuta-hyung said Mark should actually go talk to him.”

“Is that it?”

Jaemin smirked, dipping his chin down towards his chest and giving his best friend a sly look. “No, but like I said, Mark should find out for himself.”

Mark whined and flopped over the table. “There is no way I can ever face him again. _Seriously_.”

Jaemin rolled his eyes and took his seat again, Jeno following the action. “God, grow a pair would you? Why are you acting like it’s the end of the world? He wants you to talk to him, that alone should give you hope.”

Mark pulled his arms under his head and mumbled into them, his words barely able to be heard. “It’s to properly reject me. Yuta-hyung’s that kind of guy. Straight-forward with good intentions. He’ll want to let me down gently himself.”

“If you can’t tell Mark what else he said, can’t you at least tell me?” Jeno asked, turning to his best friend intently.

“Why of course I can!”

Mark raised his head from the table long enough to watch as Jaemin whispered into Jeno’s ear through cupped hands. Jeno’s smile throughout the entire thirty-seconds Jaemin took gave Mark no clue towards what was said. What was even more confusing was the small eyebrow wiggle Jaemin gave Jeno when he was done.

Jeno sat and thought about what he was told for a minute before furrowing his eyebrows. “I don’t know whether that’s good for us or not.”

Jaemin agreed with a laugh, grin far too smug for Mark’s liking.

“We’ll see once Mark talks to him.”

The oldest’s eyes strayed away from them awkwardly. He had literally just said several times that he can’t ever face Yuta again. How could they think he could go seek him out and start a conversation with him? Especially now that he knew Mark had a crush on him?

Jaemin eyed his friend carefully. “Mark _is_ going to talk to him, _aren’t you Mark_?”

“You guys don’t understand!”

“We do understand that you have no guts. We thought you were fully capable, but apparently not. Cross that off of Mark Lee’s list of perfect traits.”

Jeno only smiled at his best friends teasing, his silence taken as agreement. They both knew that Mark would crack eventually.

It wasn’t like he could avoid Yuta forever anyways.

 

Three weeks later and Mark still had yet to speak to Yuta. He refused to sit close to the field when watching practices afterschool, choosing instead to sit at the table where they had on the day Jaemin "ruined his life".

They had to start leaving a few minutes before soccer practice ended so that when Yuta passed by the area on his way to leave, Mark wouldn’t have to hide from or ignore him.

Mark still went to the games their school had, but he made sure that anytime Yuta looked out into the crowd, he wasn’t looking back. He avoided him in the school’s halls and in the cafeteria too.

In the second week of avoidance, Mark had walked into the bathroom to find Yuta already in there. The fact that Mark walked in and then straight out was probably suspicious, and he knew the senior didn’t get to see his face, but he probably got a good look at his back as he retreated to a different bathroom.

The entire three weeks that Mark avoided confrontation, he’d found that Yuta didn’t seem to have much interest in him even when he was around. He’d catch the soccer captain glance at him every now and then but that was the extent of it. His eyes didn’t linger, nor did he express any want to speak to Mark.

A full three weeks were what it took for Mark to finally seek Yuta out, and it wasn’t exactly by his own will.

To put it lightly, Jaemin and Jeno were fed up with him. They decided that until Mark spoke to Yuta, they weren’t going to talk to him. Things had gotten too weird with their sneaking around the school both during and afterschool. While Mark still followed Yuta around, watching everything as he normally did, he didn’t gush about the male anymore.

It was true that Jaemin and Jeno couldn’t stand listening to Mark declare his love for Yuta, but what they couldn’t stand more was hearing nothing but silence as they essentially stalked him together.

Two days of solitude was what it took for Mark to crack.

It wasn’t like Mark didn’t have any other friends; he had plenty, in practically every grade in the school. None of them were the same as his two best friends though, and he wasn’t close enough to any of them to not feel their absence.

So Mark decided to do what he was dreading most and finally talk to Yuta.

Jaemin and Jeno had stopped staying with him to watch practices in their retaliation, so by the time soccer practice was over Mark was by himself. He waited nervously around the area that he’d become accustomed to sitting around at, anticipating the moment that Yuta would pass through on his way home.

The second that Mark saw Yuta coming, his throat seemed to close up and his palms got sweaty. He was going to die after this interaction was done.

Yuta stopped walking in surprise at seeing Mark standing there, but smiled in the end and continued towards him.

Mark could already feel that his face and ears were flushing pink, just from having Yuta’s expectant eyes on him. He couldn’t believe that radiant smile was being directed towards him. The freshman wiped his sweaty palms on his pants and tried to clear his throat as Yuta approached him, slowing his stride to a stop.

“Y-Yuta-hyung?”

The Japanese male smiled widely, adjusting his bookbag on his shoulder.

“Hey. You need something?”

So maybe Mark would die _before_ this interaction was over.

“I-I—“ Mark stuttered, pupils darting nervously around Yuta’s face as he tried to figure out how his brain worked, “O-oh my god I don’t even know what to say.”

Yuta laughed at how flustered he was, his smile softening. “An ‘I like you’ would be a good place to start, don’t you think?”

“You already know that though, t-there wouldn’t be any point in putting me through the torture of saying it,” Mark tried to reason, more with himself than anything. He was honestly just saying whatever popped in his brain.

“Sorry for torturing you then, but I’d like to hear it come from your mouth.”

Mark swallowed hard, taking deep breaths in and out while raising his hand to press it against his chest. He was going to die. He was definitely going to die. His heart was beating far too fast.

“I-I like you, Yuta-hyung.”

The Japanese male’s smile widened again, and Mark felt like the sun was beaming directly onto him. He had a feeling that he was going to pass out.

“Now was saying that really that hard?” Mark’s head bobbed up and down in short and rapid nods, and Yuta couldn’t help but laugh at the unexpected answer. "You’re supposed to say no.”

“It’s hard to admit something like that when you know you’re going to get rejected...”

Yuta hummed in agreement to the statement, and Mark swore his body temperature raised by at least five degrees. He was so warm, so embarrassed.

“I-I mean I understand completely. I’m three grades below you, you’re the captain of the soccer team, you’re about to graduate and move on with your life, you could get probably anyone in the school that you wanted, a-and I’m honestly just a kid with a really big crush.”

The Japanese male nodded along to each reason Mark gave him, agreeing completely with them. “You are a kid. But you’re a cute kid.”

“It’s just ridiculous to think that someone as great as you could ever have any interest in someone like me, I mean—wait, what?”

“I said you’re cute,” Yuta admitted, watching as Mark stopped to blink dumbly and process the information with an open mouth. “Yeah, you’re at least three years younger than me, I’m about to graduate, there’s a lot of people that’re interested in me, I’ve got a lot more experience in life, not to mention I’m smarter than you… But you’re cute and pretty interesting as far as I've seen. I’ll go out with you.”

It took Mark’s mind a few minutes to process through everything, but Yuta was able to find enough patience to wait for him to catch up.

“Oh my god,” Mark giggled, a wide smile spreading across his face. He raised his hand to cover his mouth and giggled into it, feeling slightly hysterical out of happiness.

“You know, I had started to think that you were never going to come talk to me.”

Mark bit back a smile, trying to seem less excited than he was. “I probably wouldn’t ever have if my friends didn’t force me to.”

“We’ll have to thank them then,” Yuta suggested with a smile, holding a hand out for Mark to take. The younger wiped his palms on his pants, knowing that they’d still be clammy in the end, but Yuta didn’t mind.

“So I can start counting on you watching me practice up close again, right?”


End file.
